As Prof. Ranjan pointed out, I hope this book will garner more attention
from desgn community to the situation of Indian handloom weavers not only in
India but also with the indian diaspora overseas and others.
Svea- Saris have been of interest from the high-end indian design
community's standpoint for a while now, but there are fewer and fewer takers
for the lower end handwoven (especially cotton) ones in india, especially
among the younger generation.
Many Indian women (high-end, upper middle, in the more sari clad South as
well) have discarded the sari in favor of other fashions (not just western
or indo western but other Indian traditional clothing like the
Salwar-kameeze). The lower middle and the poor have opted for the cheaper
powerloom saris and/or china inc. imitations. There have been sustained
local efforts by Crafts councils, other NGOs & designers to revive high end
Varanasi as well as other saris in India, but the struggling cotton sari
weavers in pochampally and karimnagar and other places who have committed
suicides and garner less attention worldwide also need help.They struggle
not only against fashion changes, but also because of the WTO agreements and
correlated weaver unfriendly policies of our state, which favor powerlooms
and cheaper imports and make it difficult for handloom weavers to attain
quality or affordable raw material. The State policy to grow BT cotton is
another problem as it doesn't suit handloom weaving. Urzamma of Dastkar
andhra has written a piece on this -this can be found on the Crafts Revival
Trust website.
Many weavers and their children in Kancheepuram and other places in tamil
nadu and Andhra have chosen to take up construction or other jobs not only
because they pay more but they feel it now has more dignity, but with the
economic downturn perhaps those new venues for a better livelihood will also
end soon.
A section of the small video clip that was part of the presentation i made
of my research on artisans in India at the Smithsonian Centre for Folklife
and Cultural heritage and the Neocraft conference portays the anguish of
the Pochampally cotton weavers and other traditional craftspeople in an era
of the creative-cultural industries where designerly "crafted" products
reign.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IN&hl=en-GB&v=VP7K2TrQ9Fk
While patronage of the high end customer is important to the sari weaver,
marketing saris to just high end customer who are more more fickle in their
fashion choices may not be an enduring solution for the millions of weavers
in India or even in Sri Lanka. Perhaps, the real solution for handloom
weavers in India lies in addressing the local poor & midlle class market,
rather than the high-end niche urban or export markets. The largest number
of people who still wear saris are the poor or lower middle class in India,
but they can not afford handmade cotton ones. It would be good if the design
community in this forum as well as in India could look at more enduring
solutions from a global & national policy level.
Regards
Uma V Chandru
International Institute of Art, Culture & Democracy
Bangalore, India
On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 1:10 AM, Svea Vikander <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I agree that saris are very interesting from a design standpoint -- and
> variations on that standpoint, too.
> Marketing, for example: the ODEL department store in Colombo, Sri Lanka,
> has
> started marketing the traditional sari as a high-end fashion statement.
> Among other things, their advertisements call it 'Six yards of attitude.'
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/sveavikander/747865378/
>
>
> Enjoying the list,
> Svea Vikander
> www.sveavikander.com
>
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